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Soma Restaurant

MY REVIEW: This is hands down my favorite sushi spot. The service is excellent, the sushi is very fresh, and the chef's specials are always phenomenal. Anytime I eat sushi anywhere else I think "should've gone to Soma".

NAME: Rebaluvs
SUBMITTED: 4/27/2011   LAST VISIT WAS: 03/19/2011
FREQUENCY: Visited 4-6 times

MY REVIEW: Had the 5 Course Tasting Menu, food and service were outstanding. The sushi/sashimi offerings were creative and of the highest quality. Price was about $150.00 without wine and a few extras. Well worth it!! Parking even with valet was tight, I would stay away on the weekends because of that.

NAME: John B
SUBMITTED: 8/12/2009   LAST VISIT WAS: August 2009
FREQUENCY: Visited once

MY REVIEW: I have eaten here a few times, normally when it was not busy. The quality of the sushi appears better than most of the other sushi restaurants in town.

The sushi-type appetizers were exceptional. The destiny may only be 5 pieces of sushi, but each piece (tuna, salmon, scallop, whitefish, kampachi(?))is enhanced with a different technique or condiment. Try a bite of each before adding soy sauce. It may surprise you.

The roe sampler highlights five different types of roe - ikura, pollack, uni, haddock, and tobiko(3 types with quail egg). Each one shows off a different texture and flavor experience.

Try them when its not too busy. Attentive service at the sushi bar.

NAME: foodie
SUBMITTED: 4/10/2009   LAST VISIT WAS: 04/09
FREQUENCY: Visited 4-6 times

MY REVIEW: nice decor, very attentive waitstaff- but mildly overpriced.

the sushi was just okay but at least the portion sizes are above average.

the one roll i had that was worth going back for was the phoenix roll.

their philadelphia wasnt that great- and that is a hard one to screw up.

NAME: tideturns
SUBMITTED: 2/9/2009   LAST VISIT WAS: 02-09-09
FREQUENCY: Visited once

MY REVIEW: The host is beautiful. The crowds are loud and noisy. The kitchen food isn't bad at all. But the sushi is MEDIOCRE. The sushi rice does not taste right. It does not have the right texture or flavor. The rolls are made way too BIG, bigger than the size of C*hipotle burritos. The rice ball under the nigiri is packed too hard. The fish slices are not cut at the right angles or the proper thickness. There is no "WOW" factor in their sushi creations. This shows the lack of skills, training, and attention to details of their sushi chefs. Under the watchful eyes of their former head chef Takusan, their sushi used to be great. The only great sushi bar, which is also Zagat rated, is Kubos sushi in Rice Village. It's a joke that Soma claims to be a high-end Japanese restaurant when they are not even Zagat-rated. This restaurant has the potential to be great if they hire better sushi chefs that are actually Japanese or culinary trained.

NAME: Matsu Aikawa
SUBMITTED: 1/27/2009   LAST VISIT WAS: 12/2008
FREQUENCY: Visited 2-3 times

MY REVIEW: The food is wonderful and the wait staff is really good. However, the crowd is loud on the weekends and borderline thuggish on Saturday nights. The valet is an absolute MESS. I would avoid this restaurant on Saturday nights. Great place for a quick lunch!

NAME: Lesli
SUBMITTED: 1/20/2009   LAST VISIT WAS: 12/2008
FREQUENCY: Visited 4-6 times

MY REVIEW: Strong Points are the lively bar scene and interesting decor and attentive, friendly service. Mixed points for the sometimes obnoxious see-and-be-seen crowd. (I personlly prefer a more mature foodie-crowd.) Disappointed in the appetizer. They were supposed to be spicy tuna cakes. We received three almost baseball-sized, deep fried "puffs" with a little dollop of spicy tuna in the middle. Strange combination and, ultimately, too filling for an appetizer, though Specialty rolls were interesting and fresh, but had too much going on in terms of trying to cram as many ingredients as possible into a roll. Rolls were huge, and the pieces were not a manageable size. Some of the nigiri was amazing (sea bass, salmon), but some did not taste fresh at all (yellowtail and escolar). This is not the best place for sushi purists, but can nevertheless make for a good change of scene if you choose carefully and don't mind the throngs on a busy night.

NAME: skamp
SUBMITTED: 12/11/2008   LAST VISIT WAS: 12/2008
FREQUENCY: Visited 2-3 times

MY REVIEW: RSVP is a must if you want to be seated quickly. I was told that walk-ins would be a 45 min-1 HR wait. We RSVP'd! Hostess staff was friendly. The French Martini is awesome!! Food, atmosphere, and service was great. Sushi rolls were tasty, salmon was fresh, and the Cornish Hen was huge. VALET sucks!!! The restaurant is beautiful!!!

NAME: ilovefood
SUBMITTED: 11/18/2008   LAST VISIT WAS: 11/14/2008
FREQUENCY: Visited once

MY REVIEW: Crowd was happening. The 8 course tasting menu was quite good --I especially liked the duck and crab soup and the tempura fig and banana eggroll with caramel ice cream. The sashimi was very fresh. I thought the tasting menu was heavier on the seafood, and it would have been interesting to have more of variety. There was an abundance of escolar, which I didn't enjoy as much as the other seafood. Valet is a mess, as I kept on seeing my car drive through the parking lot even though I had walked into the lot and kept on waving for the valet to stop.

NAME: drfoodie
SUBMITTED: 10/16/2008   LAST VISIT WAS: 10/16/08
FREQUENCY: Visited 2-3 times

MY REVIEW: I've been to happy hour 3 times now. French martini is great! The crab cakes are improved -- and they have a good sauce on top. The sliders are filling -- chicken, fish, and lamb fillings. The eel roll and spicy salmon roll were quite fresh. Service is a still a little slow. Still a fun place to hang out.

NAME: drfoodie
SUBMITTED: 9/27/2008   LAST VISIT WAS: 09/08
FREQUENCY: Visited 4-6 times

MY REVIEW: We had a girls night and tried the happy hour. My French martini was quite good. Atmosphere was fun. Took a while to get our food. The waitress told us the crab cakes were tiny, but we were happy surprised with the size and chunks of crab meat. It just needs more of a dipping sauce. The California roll with real crab (from the main menu) was okay. The uni and sea urchin were fresh. The tartare plate was a real let down -- warm, placed in spoons, and looked like cat food. The rainbow spider roll was crunchy, but the fish on top was warm. It was a good looking crowd, but I wouldn't come for the food!!! I've had better sushi elsewheres, but might return for the crabcakes!

NAME: drfoodie
SUBMITTED: 7/16/2008   LAST VISIT WAS: 07/08
FREQUENCY: Visited 2-3 times

MY REVIEW: I think NYC chef must work for the restaurant. I couldn't agree more with Mas. The food is mediocre. This is NOT a sushi restaurant. The fish was of poor quality. There was no variety, no hard to find specialty fish. The 'franco-japanese' dishes that Chef Gadsby created are bland and uninteresting. I was just disappointed and will not be returning. They seem to just care about creating a trendy lounge instead of concentrating on the food.

NAME: houston.foodie
SUBMITTED: 7/1/2008   LAST VISIT WAS: 5/2008
FREQUENCY: Visited once

MY REVIEW: What an absolutely beautiful restaurant asthetically - architects and interior designer did a beautiful job. Loved the water features! Only downside was having to walk through the main dining area to go to the restrooms - were they an after-thought? We sat at the sushi bar and had I been sitting in the main dining area I would not have been amused if the restaurant was busy and people were continually trekking by our table to go to the loos!

Service was prettyabyssmal especially when they were not busy on a Sunday evening so staff need to be better trained (waiter kept disappearing - literally). The food was good on the whole and we are certainly planning on going back. Some strange items on the menu, however ... fish and chips, for instance. I am a Brit and wouldn't order F&C in a Japanese restaurant!

NAME: Harrogatelass
SUBMITTED: 5/5/2008   LAST VISIT WAS: May 2008
FREQUENCY: Visited once

MY REVIEW: What a premise! A fusion of the great food of Robert Gadbsy, late of N*oe in the O*mni, and the fine folks at A*zuma, a very good sushi bar. We were expecting great things.

Unfortunately, it was a terrible meal. My wife ordered a pumpkin soup, I got a crab salad on endive. We also ordered sushi, sashimi for me and a roll for my wife. Then we ordered an entree.

All of the food came out at once. What a mistake by the service staff! While my salad was good, the rest was terrible. My short ribs were a little cooler than room temperature, and the sushi roll was not the one my wife ordered. To be nice (and to satisfy her sense of adventure) she decided to keep it. It was horrible, chewy, and off tasting to boot.

When chef Gadsby walked by from another table (and I think he recognized me as a frequenter of N*oe) he asked how everything was. When I told him, he just walked off with a blank stare.

We had to go to M*olina's after for margaritas and bar food just to get the bad taste and bitter feeling of disappointment out of our systems.

There are too many great restaurants in this town (and too many mediocre ones better than this) for us to go back again.

NAME: T-bone Timmy
SUBMITTED: 4/24/2008   LAST VISIT WAS: 3/2008
FREQUENCY: Visited once

MY REVIEW: i really enjoy soma, but it seems like the food is never consistent. last week i went twice and got the curry the first time, and the butternut soup the second. the curry wasn't the way i got it several weeks ago. 3 weeks ago on my visit, the curry was bright yellow and full of flavor, now it was a brownish red and not too appealing or tasty. the butternut soup was curdled? i think u call it, or broken. i don't know whats going on in the kitchen but i wish they'd get back to the way it was a few weeks ago. other than that, the service and atmosphere are awesome.

NAME: david r. jansen
SUBMITTED: 4/22/2008   LAST VISIT WAS: last week
FREQUENCY: Visited 2-3 times

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